Secondhand Sight

[capt_facepalm]

Title:  Secondhand Sight
Author: capt_facepalm
Rating: PG
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes (Gaslight)
Characters: Sherlock Holmes, Inspector Lestrade, Dr Watson
Summary: A vignette
Warnings: (what, no dialogue?)
Word Count: 100
Author's Notes: July 24th prompt: (The Self Portrait of Horace Vernet, Holmes' great-uncle)

The 1885 London Vernet showing featured several of the artist’s finest works including many depictions of the French military.

Watson stood transfixed before one of the smaller paintings of a battle scene featuring a fusilier and a drummer boy tending to a wounded dog.

Inspector Lestrade, who had accompanied Mr Holmes and Dr Watson, made some inane comment about how dangerous painting during a pitched battle would be.

Holmes glanced at Watson, who had not moved, and assured Lestrade that although the painter’s work was done in studio, one need not see war first-hand in order to understand its horrors.

.oOOo.

Please sign the guestbook

---

Recommended Reading/Viewing:
Ruutz-Rees, Janet Emily; Horace Vernet and Paul Delaroche; Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, London 1880.
Vernet, Émile-Jean-Horace; Le Chien du regiment blesse; 1819.

Comments

[litlover12.livejournal.com]

Very nice!

[capt-facepalm.livejournal.com]

Thanks! This is one of my favourites this month.

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

Oh, I like this.

[capt-facepalm.livejournal.com]

Thanks! This is one of my favourites.
I like the idea that Holmes has discovered many things about his Boswell, and one of them is that the war had a profound effect on him. This is especially true in an age before there was PTSD.

[keerawa.livejournal.com]

Well done.

[capt-facepalm.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[debriswoman]

Subtle and very moving:-)

[capt-facepalm.livejournal.com]

Thank you! This is one of my favourites from this month.
I'm glad you liked it. Sometimes I worry about subtlety: whether I am being clever and about as subtle as a hammer, or whether I have gone too far and am being obscure.

[wirral-bagpuss.livejournal.com]

I cant help but wonder if this painting is showing Watson in battle tending to the dog as a very young soldier and he has managed to hide this from Holmes? Could be a drabble sequel!

[capt-facepalm.livejournal.com]

No, this is a French painting from 1819 depicting French troops. But something about the painting causes Watson to stop, fixated on the content. Of course the fact that the 66th Berkshires also had a regimental dog, Bobby, might be strictly coincidental.
:-)

[monkeybard]

Oh, very nice!

[capt-facepalm.livejournal.com]

Thank you!
This is one of my favourites from this month!

[hagstrom]

I quite like the painting you decided to make your story from. And one can only hope that little visit to the gallery won't trigger any nightmares or unwanted memories!

[capt-facepalm.livejournal.com]

Thanks you so much!
And you know my methods so well since you have correctly extrapolated that this little innocent visit to the gallery will cause Watson problems. After all, he hasn't moved from that painting in a long time.

[pompey01.livejournal.com]

Aww, Holmes being tactful shows how much he cares!

[capt-facepalm.livejournal.com]

Thanks!
I have no doubt that Holmes cares very much. It is the Victorian constraints that force us to read between the lines.

[med_cat]

Well-written and IC, as always :)

[capt-facepalm.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I am especially please when the characters ring true despite the limits of a drabble.

[med_cat]

Yours always do :)

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

Lovely. Yeah, war has a way of tattooing images onto your brain - some use ink, and some use paint, to soothe them.

[capt-facepalm.livejournal.com]

Thanks!
Holmes has come to face the fact that something is wrong with Watson. This was in the days before PTSD was invented, and his otherwise fine, upstanding fellow lodger definitely has a problem. In fact, neither of them understand it. Watson is sure that six months time and three continents distance would have relieved him of any war stress. Holmes is not so sure.

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

Poor fellow - imagine living at a time when the only name people had for PTSD was "cowardice." It's a good thing Holmes is smarter than the average Victorian.

[capt-facepalm.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think this is a major crux for Watson. Not only that other people might think him a coward, but that he is uncertain what the problem is, and he is probably very scared. Not something you can talk about in those days. So, if Holmes is a very observant man, the one thing that he is sure of is that Watson is not a coward.

[goldvermilion87.livejournal.com]

Most excellent.

[capt-facepalm.livejournal.com]

Thanks!
This one is one of my favourites this month!